On Christmas Eve, 2002, Sydney solicitor John Ellis received a letter from the Archbishop of Sydney, Cardinal George Pell.It was about the sexual abuse he suffered at the hands of Father Aidan Duggan of the Bass Hill parish, some 35 years before.
The letter said there was no way his abuse claim could be substantiated, as Father Duggan was demented and ''in no state to respond to the charges against him''.
''I regret that a clear resolution of this matter is not possible, but under the circumstances I do not see that there is anything the Archdiocese can do towards this end,'' Dr Pell wrote.
Ellis had spent the entire year in Towards Healing, the protocol created by the church in 1996 to deal with abuse complaints in all states except Victoria.
The church later found Ellis's claim substantiated on the balance of probabilities, but only after he had read his rights under the Towards Healing protocol and insisted an investigator be appointed.
Cardinal Pell later apologised. He told the Herald through a spokeswoman that the Archdiocese continues to meet with Ellis and to provide him with financial and pastoral support.
Ellis was eventually offered $30,000 in compensation on the condition he sign a letter absolving the church of further liability. He refused the offer and took his case to court, losing in the NSW Court of Appeal. He was refused leave to appeal to the High Court.
The "Ellis decision" by the NSW Court of Appeal found the trustees in each diocese in NSW and ACT were not responsible for the conduct of priests and teachers in parochial schools at least prior to 1986, when the relevant legislation was amended. The post-1986 position has not yet been tested under the law.
This means that in NSW at least, victims can often find no legal entity to sue.
However, last week Toowoomba Bishop William Morris accepted on behalf of his diocese formal liability for the actions of a paedophile teacher it employed. It remains to be seen if other dioceses will follow suit.
Sister Angela Ryan, the head of the national bureau of the Professional Standards Office, says the process has been refined since 1996, and was most recently reviewed in January by Professor Patrick Parkinson, a family law and child protection specialist at the University of Sydney.
The church keeps no central statistics on the process, she says.
A statement from Cardinal Pell's office said: "Towards Healing is designed ... to bring justice and healing to those who have been abused."
SIC: CTHAUS